Dissent from Within
by Vulpecula Night
Summary: 07 Movieverse. In the middle of a war, the only people you can trust are your friends and allies. However, what happens when YOU become the enemy, and you don't even realize it? For the Autobots, especially Ironhide, the loss hits far too close to home.


Well, the idea for this story only came to me recently, just 3 days ago to be exact. Now, this is my first attempt at a fanfic in nearly six years, so I am positive that I am rather rusty at it. So, I beg of you to please be patient with me. Also, this is mainly based off of the 2007 movie, and I have little recollection of any of the Transformers cartoons. So, if anything sounds somewhat out of place or even completely wrong, please alert me. Just no flames! I can take structured criticism, just not out-right yelling.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything of the Transformers franchise. Besides, even if you sued me, you wouldn't get a dime. I am a poor college student after all!

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**Prologue**

142 years. It's been nearly a century and a half since the Cybertronians first made their presence known on Earth. After millions of years of warfare, the Autobots and Decepticons, the two factions of the robotic race of giants, had abandoned their barren home world, Cybertron. Both had come in search of the almighty Allspark, their creator and source of all life: the Decepticons to create a force large enough to defeat the Autobots for once and for all; the Autobots to rebuild their planet or if need be, destroy the cube before the Decepticons' plan could be fulfilled. Luckily for us humans, the Autobots won, with the destruction of the Allspark nearly complete save for one small chip that Optimus kept.

So much has changed since that fateful day in Mission City.

Shortly after the battle, Optimus transmitted a message for any remaining Autobots in the universe to respond. Less than a year later, in the summer of 2008, the call was answered. Numerous Autobots had received the transmission and were thus headed for Earth. Within weeks, the first began to arrive, some with news of others who had not yet answered, but had still survived the war. The Autobot force was still strong, and it was only a matter of time until every one of them made it to the home base of Earth.

However, even with their ability to transform, the difficulty of keeping the secret of an alien colony from humans was immense. While the American government attempted to cover up the Battle of Mission City, the exposure was far too great to be completely nullified. The idea of large robotic aliens residing on the planet, along with a possible invasion, became a conspiracy theory throughout the nation. The rumors continued to spread, and with eye-witnesses to Mission City available to spur confirmation, or at least those who had been able to avoid the military's attempt at secrecy, it was difficult to curb speculation.

Yet the secret was kept from the public for years without too many problems. That is, until 2011. Starscream had returned with reinforcements in tow. With the possibility of obtaining the Allspark no longer viable and no point in retrieving their fallen leader, subtlety was of little concern. With the rest of his seeker brothers and coneheads as aerial support, Starscream launched an attack on Las Angeles in hopes of luring the Autobots out of hiding. While Optimus and his soldiers defended the city, everything that the government had done to uphold confidentiality was destroyed within a few short minutes. Media crews had recorded a majority of the battle, and news of the Cybertronians had circled the globe. The secret was out, and panic soon followed.

Countries scrambled to mobilize their militaries while the United Nations met to discuss how to destroy the invaders. As the only way to keep the Autobots safe from human harm, the American government disclosed that it had prior knowledge to the aliens' existence since the 1930s and assured the general public that the Autobots were different from the Decepticons and were of no harm to us. While the fallout in the United Nations may have been a political nightmare, the general populace of Earth was left only wary of their new inhabitants. Yet, as usual with the human race, anger and distrust still remained strong among many. "_Autobots__Decepticons__ They're both of the same alien specie__s. Why should we trust them!?_" came the cry. However, it did not matter to the Autobots. The Decepticons had returned and the four years of peace had come to an end.

However, my father was not about to force them to fight alone. He, along with all of the other surviving soldiers of Qatar and Mission City, swore to help the Autobots in their fight against the Decepticons. With the help of the Secretary of Defense John Keller, the Autobots' base was fitted with human military artillery and vehicles. Any and all actions performed by the group were considered outside of American military jurisdiction, as technically they were no longer their soldiers. However, with attacks from the Decepticons increasing, along with their targets now expanding beyond American borders, it didn't take long for members of other militaries across the world to join in their cause.

Yet, in 2013, the union between the members of planet Earth and the Autobots was officially recognized, as well as their joint effort to defend the world from the Decepticons. As a treaty that both sides promised to uphold, the Autobot and United Nations for Freedom Alliance formed. AUNFA swore that they would aide each other in any way possible, be it in soldiers, knowledge, shelter, or any other form of relief. My father mentioned that it was the first time in our history that the entire world banded together for one cause. Since I was only six at the time, I was unable to fully understand how monumental the union was. The only thing I cared about was that everyone was now against the 'bad guys' and that my parents and guardian were happy.

With the formation of the Alliance, humankind was introduced to vast amounts of Cybetronian knowledge, ranging from history, engineering, and lore. It was of little surprise that humans were awed in regards to the Allspark and its capabilities. Besides being the creation of all life on Cybertron, it had shown its ability to heal Cybetronians (as with Frenzy) and recently, proved that it could reestablish a spark. In 2010, Ratchet, with the aid of Wheeljack and Perceptor, was able to rekindle the life within the fallen Autobot Jazz with the power from the remaining chip of the Allspark. Since then, Autobot scientists had been able to further study what remained of their creator in hopes of gaining further knowledge to what it was capable of. If it was capable of bringing about the existence of an entire race of DNA based mechanical beings with advanced intelligence, then what other abilities could it possibly perform?

The scientists gained a helping hand from their human counterparts in 2015 as both sides agreed, not only as a way of gaining knowledge for both species but also as a way to show how far the alliance reached, to study the Allspark together. The collaboration helped solidify the human race's trust in the Autobots as research on the small chip became the founding pathways to new energy sources and weapons. While the radiation from the chip could be channeled into raw energy, the radiation itself in its pure form held great promise in its own right. In 2017, with permission from AUNFA (and more specifically, the Autobot and human scientists working with the Allspark) a small group of the human scientists took a small portion of the chip to study for medical research. As a way of preventing contamination of both chips from experimentation, the medical scientists moved the chip to a different facility. Their hope was that by manipulating the radiation of the Allspark, it could be altered to aid humans instead of Cybertronians. With any luck, they could find a way to cure most illness and other ailments that the species suffered from, such as cancer and AIDS.

However, we are not perfect beings, and inasmuch, not everything went according to plan. In 2019, the worst radiation disaster in Earth's history occurred, making Chernobyl appear like a firecracker in comparison. While attempting an experiment on the Allspark's radiation, the energy became highly unstable. Unable to stop the reaction from occurring, the containment field for the chip failed due to the interference from the fluctuating energy arcs. Without warning, the energy, searching for an outlet, violently dispersed. The resulting explosion released a wave of Allspark radiation that spanned the globe. However, as the energy had been altered somewhat to help humans, the resulting radiation had no affect on the Cybertronians or anything mechanical. We humans weren't so lucky.

The wave of radiation searched for the beings that it had been altered to aid. Within a matter of minutes it had touched every human on the face of the Earth. As it had once believed that the Cybertronians were its own, so now were the humans. However, while it had been changed to affect the human genetic makeup, its Cybertronian roots still remained.

The initial explosion was strong enough that it destroyed everything within a five mile radius. The radiation burst that followed was so volatile at the onset that within one-hundred miles of the decimated facility, the result was very akin to nuclear fallout. Within twenty-four hours, every human being residing in the area was dead.

As the news spread across the globe, concern about the possible reactions of the radiation raised panic from every nation. Yet as the following week passed with no ill effects being reported from any of the populace, the concern began to cease. Within the next following weeks and years though, that began to change. People began turning to their hospitals complaining of strange aches in various areas of their person, some spanning their entire body. The results were astounding. The Allspark radiation had performed its task, but as it was originally meant for Cybertronians and anything else of mechanical nature, it had changed the affected humans' genetic code to reflect that. They were slowly adopting Cybertronian traits in varying degrees.

I was one of these individuals. As my body began to change from the onslaught of puberty, the Allspark radiation began to take hold. It was the same for every other teenager who had been a child when the explosion occurred. As if growing up in itself wasn't difficult enough, now we had to throw being cybernetic mutations into the mix. And that's what we were called, mutants. Freaks in an all-organic world filled with a species that feared what it did not understand and could not control. I did not mind what I was. In fact, I enjoyed it. I was thrilled with the possibility of becoming that which I had admired for my entire life. Not everyone in the same predicament was pleased though. In fact, it was damn near fatal to be what we were.

Shortly after realizing just what the Allspark had done, parts of humanity began to revolt. Distrust grew against the Autobots, and to be a human with anything remotely cybertronic about them could have been translated to be a death sentence. The following years yielded an entirely new level of racism that had never before been seen. 2020 was only the beginning of the horror for those who had been transformed. That year, people began to demand that their governments create restrictions for the Mechanicals, what we are actually known as. They wished for us to register with the governments, detailing the extent of the Cybertronian influence within us. The people, or at least those who wished us ill will, hoped to use the information to prevent us from obtaining certain jobs, joining our militaries, or even attending certain schools. Other countries began to listen to their populaces. The American government resisted the call, remembering their friendship with the Autobots. The prejudice amongst some of the citizens could not be monitored though. The people were free to believe whatever they wished, and the law couldn't change that. All in all, it was a nightmarish time for us.

That all changed though in 2028. An election year for the American presidency, one of the popular candidates, Elliot Scanderstene, revealed that he was a Mechanical. He released the information only a few months prior to the election and attempted to bring about awareness and understanding of Mechanicals to the American people. His competitors thought that it was political suicide, while the rest of us believed him to be our hero. He was literally risking his life by revealing what he was. Even the Autbots believed him to be noble, and had even given him a bit of their respect. However, the election still rested in the hands of the people. Yet after the ballots were counted and even recounted, Scanderstene had won the presidency by the smallest margin in the nation's history. That day changed everything for us.

Countries of AUNFA who had placed restrictions against the Mechanicals of their people felt that they could not keep the laws if they were to be allies to a country that had one as its leader. Within two years, most of the restrictions had been lifted. As a way of penance, AUNFA formally established the soldiers who had aided the Autobots following 2011 as members of its official military called the Cybertronian Coalition. It was hoped that Mechanicals would join the military, as it was the one place they knew that they would not be discriminated against. There, they could fight for their planet amongst people who did not fear them, but instead, understood them.

I am a member of the Cybertronian Coalition, and have been ever since its formal creation. I have stood by my guardian's and friends' sides for over a hundred years, fighting the Decepticons and everything that they stand for. I am Major Annabelle Lennox, chief medical officer of the Cybertronian Coalition.

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Alright, there is the prologue! Now, please let me know what you think! Also, I am in need of a beta, so if anyone is interested, let me know. I intend on bringing in Autobots and Decepticons from various different parts of the series (Wikipedia is a Godsend.), so if you have any suggestions of who should be brought in, let me know!

AOD


End file.
